Destructive Earthquake hits Taiwan,
Early on Wednesday, a strong earthquake shook the whole island of Taiwan, bringing down buildings in a southern city and causing a tsunami to crash upon islands in southern Japan.
In the sparsely inhabited Hualien, a five-story building seemed severely damaged, with the first floor collapsing and the remaining stories tilting at a 45-degree angle. Tiles from older buildings and some of the newer office complexes in Taipei, the capital, collapsed.
The 23 million-person island saw the suspension of train and subway services in Taipei. However, everything in the capital soon reverted to normal, with kids heading back to school and the morning traffic seeming to go as usual.
About fifteen minutes after the earthquake, a tsunami wave of thirty centimeters, or roughly one foot, was spotted off the shore of Yonaguni island, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. According to JAMA, waves most likely also struck the Yaeyama and Miyako island beaches. The Self Defense Force of Japan dispatched planes to collect data regarding the tsunami’s effects in the Okinawa area and was getting ready to host evacuees in case it became required.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude of 7.4, whereas Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency reported a value of 7.2. It was around 18 kilometers southwest of Hualien when it struck at 7:58 a.m., and its depth was roughly 35 kilometers (21 miles).
Wu Chien-fu, the director of Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring bureau, reported that the effects were felt as far away as Kinmen, an island off the coast of China that is governed by Taiwan. An hour after the first earthquake, Taipei experienced many aftershocks. One of the later earthquakes, according to the USGS, had a magnitude of 6.5 and a depth of 11.8 kilometers (7 miles).
Hawaii and the US territory of Guam in the Pacific were not at danger from tsunamis, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The earthquake was thought to be the largest to strike Taiwan since one that left significant damage in 1999. Taiwan is located along the “Ring of Fire,” a chain of seismic faults that circles the Pacific Ocean and is the epicenter of most earthquakes worldwide.
